“For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.”
~ Carl Bernstein, b. 14 February 1944
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Tag Archives: culture
Lee Smith (b. November 1): “We have to pay attention” & other quotes on writing
1 Nov
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Lee Smith, born 1 November 1944, is an American fiction author whose writing has won the O. Henry Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction.
Quotes on writing:
- I like books. I like to read for four hours at a stretch.
- If you’re writing, you’re always living your life in a very attentive manner, because you have to.
- The practice of writing itself is a way of staying in touch with the deeper, more meaningful self and the experience of writing.
- We have to pay attention. It’s a lifetime of paying attention and of listening and looking and seeing images and hearing stories and noticing things.
- When you’re just flat-out writing, it’s very much like prayer. You’re totally out of yourself, and you come back to yourself with this sort of feeling that you don’t get from anything else.
- I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what’s good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.
- My advice for young writers is just do it. Don’t wait for some ideal point in your life when you will finally have “time to write.” No sane person ever has time to write. Don’t clean the bathroom, don’t paint the hall. Write. Claim your time. And remember that a writer is a person who is writing, not a person who is publishing.
Carl Bernstein (b. February 14): “Weird, stupid and coarse are becoming cultural norms…”
14 Feb
“For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.”
~ Carl Bernstein, b. 14 February 1944
pinterest.com/pin/39406565463657066/
Lee Smith (b. November 1): “We have to pay attention” & other quotes on writing
1 Novpinterest.com/pin/39406565465077378/
Lee Smith, born 1 November 1944, is an American fiction author whose writing has won the O. Henry Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction.
Quotes on writing:
- I like books. I like to read for four hours at a stretch.
- If you’re writing, you’re always living your life in a very attentive manner, because you have to.
- The practice of writing itself is a way of staying in touch with the deeper, more meaningful self and the experience of writing.
- We have to pay attention. It’s a lifetime of paying attention and of listening and looking and seeing images and hearing stories and noticing things.
- When you’re just flat-out writing, it’s very much like prayer. You’re totally out of yourself, and you come back to yourself with this sort of feeling that you don’t get from anything else.
- I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what’s good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.
- My advice for young writers is just do it. Don’t wait for some ideal point in your life when you will finally have “time to write.” No sane person ever has time to write. Don’t clean the bathroom, don’t paint the hall. Write. Claim your time. And remember that a writer is a person who is writing, not a person who is publishing.
Carl Bernstein (b. February 14): “Weird, stupid and coarse are becoming cultural norms…”
14 Feb
“For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.”
~ Carl Bernstein, b. 14 February 1944
pinterest.com/pin/39406565463657066/
Taiye Selasi (b. November 2): “I write essays to clear my mind, fiction to open my heart.”
2 Nov
pinterest.com/pin/39406565465078969/
Taiye Selasi, born 2 November 1979, is an English writer born to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She has published three collections of short stories and the novel, Ghana Must Go.
Quotes on writing:
- I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
- As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.
- The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.
- As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.
- I’ve written fiction for as long as I can remember; it’s always been my preferred form of play.
- I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.
- That’s what makes writer’s block so painful. You think the well has run dry, maybe somewhere in the heavens the tap has been turned off. That’s beyond frightening.
- So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.
- I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are inaccurate, but that they’re incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn’t that it’s inaccurate, it’s that it’s incomplete.
Lee Smith (b. November 1): “We have to pay attention” & other quotes on writing
1 Novpinterest.com/pin/39406565465077378/
Lee Smith, born 1 November 1944, is an American fiction author whose writing has won the O. Henry Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction.
Quotes on writing:
- I like books. I like to read for four hours at a stretch.
- If you’re writing, you’re always living your life in a very attentive manner, because you have to.
- The practice of writing itself is a way of staying in touch with the deeper, more meaningful self and the experience of writing.
- We have to pay attention. It’s a lifetime of paying attention and of listening and looking and seeing images and hearing stories and noticing things.
- When you’re just flat-out writing, it’s very much like prayer. You’re totally out of yourself, and you come back to yourself with this sort of feeling that you don’t get from anything else.
- I think writing has always had a powerful corrective influence and possibility. We have to write about what’s good, and we also have to write about parts of our culture that are not good, that are not working out. I think it takes a new eye.
- My advice for young writers is just do it. Don’t wait for some ideal point in your life when you will finally have “time to write.” No sane person ever has time to write. Don’t clean the bathroom, don’t paint the hall. Write. Claim your time. And remember that a writer is a person who is writing, not a person who is publishing.
Chuck Palahniuk (b. Feb 21): “We must never, ever be boring.”
21 Feb
pinterest.com/pin/39406565465711796/
Chuck Palahniuk, born 21 February 1962, is an American novelist who describes his work as ‘transgressional fiction’. He is best known as the author of the award-winning novel Fight Club, which also was made into a feature film.
Quotes on Life & Writing:
- All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
- It’s easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It’s a lot more difficult to perform one.creation,
- You have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. Every minute is a choice. To be or not to be.
- I try to tell a story the way someone would tell you a story in a bar, with the same kind of timing and pacing.
- Every time I write something, I think, this is the most offensive thing I will ever write. But no. I always surprise myself.
- I write compulsively. I’ve got so many ideas, and I love to do it so much, I can’t not do it. I write the way some people do drugs.
- What I’m always trying to do with every book is to recreate the effect of the stories we heard as children in front of camp fires and fireplaces – the ghost stories that engaged us.
- Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It’s all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary.
- You hear the best stories from ordinary people. That sense of immediacy is more real to me than a lot of writerly, literary-type crafted stories. I want that immediacy when I read a novel.
- I always thought I’d write when I retired – when I turned 65. But by the time I was 33, to tell you the truth, I was a little bored with drugs and sex, and I thought I’d do the writing thing.
- I wanted to write about the moment when your addictions no longer hide the truth from you. When your whole life breaks down. That’s the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about.
- The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.
Carl Bernstein (b. Feb 14): “The weird and stupid and coarse are becoming our cultural norms…”
14 Feb
“For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norms, even our cultural ideal.”
~ Carl Bernstein, b. 14 February 1944
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/39406565463657066/
Taiye Selasi (b. November 2): “I write essays to clear my mind, fiction to open my heart.”
2 Novpinterest.com/pin/39406565465078969/
Taiye Selasi, born 2 November 1979, is an English writer born to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She has published three collections of short stories and the novel, Ghana Must Go.
Quotes on writing:
- I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
- As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully.
- The writer presents himself to the blank page not with an open passport but an open heart.
- As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.
- I’ve written fiction for as long as I can remember; it’s always been my preferred form of play.
- I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.
- That’s what makes writer’s block so painful. You think the well has run dry, maybe somewhere in the heavens the tap has been turned off. That’s beyond frightening.
- So often, literature about African people is conflated with literature about African politics, as if the state were somehow of greater import or interest than the individual.
- I read recently that the problem with stereotypes isn’t that they are inaccurate, but that they’re incomplete. And this captures perfectly what I think about contemporary African literature. The problem isn’t that it’s inaccurate, it’s that it’s incomplete.
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